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Silas Marner

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131-419: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe is the third novel by English author George Eliot , pen name of Mary Ann Evans. It was published in 1861. An outwardly simple tale of a linen weaver, the novel is notable for its strong realism and its sophisticated treatment of a variety of issues ranging from religion to industrialisation to community. The novel is set in the early years of the 19th century. Silas Marner,

262-451: A genealogical branching of a single evolutionary tree , in which "It is absurd to talk of one animal being higher than another", thereby discarding Lamarck's idea of independent lineages progressing to higher forms. While developing this intensive study of transmutation, Darwin became mired in more work. Still rewriting his Journal , he took on editing and publishing the expert reports on his collections, and with Henslow's help obtained

393-562: A 230-page "Essay", to be expanded with his research results if he died prematurely. In November, the anonymously published sensational best-seller Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation brought wide interest in transmutation. Darwin scorned its amateurish geology and zoology, but carefully reviewed his own arguments. Controversy erupted, and it continued to sell well despite contemptuous dismissal by scientists. Darwin completed his third geological book in 1846. He now renewed

524-845: A Bachelor of Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican country parson . Darwin was unqualified for Cambridge's Tripos exams and was required instead to join the ordinary degree course. He preferred riding and shooting to studying. During the first few months of Darwin's enrolment at Christ's College, his second cousin William Darwin Fox was still studying there. Fox impressed him with his butterfly collection, introducing Darwin to entomology and influencing him to pursue beetle collecting. He did this zealously and had some of his finds published in James Francis Stephens ' Illustrations of British entomology (1829–1932). Through Fox, Darwin became

655-673: A Treasury grant of £1,000 to sponsor this multi-volume Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle , a sum equivalent to about £115,000 in 2021. He stretched the funding to include his planned books on geology, and agreed to unrealistic dates with the publisher. As the Victorian era began, Darwin pressed on with writing his Journal , and in August 1837 began correcting printer's proofs . As Darwin worked under pressure, his health suffered. On 20 September, he had "an uncomfortable palpitation of

786-591: A beginning to each crop of species". Darwin's book The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs on his theory of atoll formation was published in May 1842 after more than three years of work, and he then wrote his first "pencil sketch" of his theory of natural selection. To escape the pressures of London, the family moved to rural Down House in Kent in September. On 11 January 1844, Darwin mentioned his theorising to

917-547: A book on geology. When they reached Brazil, Darwin was delighted by the tropical forest , but detested the sight of slavery there , and disputed this issue with FitzRoy. The survey continued to the south in Patagonia . They stopped at Bahía Blanca , and in cliffs near Punta Alta Darwin made a major find of fossil bones of huge extinct mammals beside modern seashells, indicating recent extinction with no signs of change in climate or catastrophe. He found bony plates like

1048-718: A break and went "geologising" in Scotland. He visited Glen Roy in glorious weather to see the parallel "roads" cut into the hillsides at three heights. He later published his view that these were marine-raised beaches, but then had to accept that they were shorelines of a proglacial lake . Fully recuperated, he returned to Shrewsbury in July 1838. Used to jotting down daily notes on animal breeding, he scrawled rambling thoughts about marriage, career and prospects on two scraps of paper, one with columns headed "Marry" and "Not Marry" . Advantages under "Marry" included "constant companion and

1179-471: A calm spell. On their first stop ashore at St Jago in Cape Verde, Darwin found that a white band high in the volcanic rock cliffs included seashells. FitzRoy had given him the first volume of Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology , which set out uniformitarian concepts of land slowly rising or falling over immense periods, and Darwin saw things Lyell's way, theorising and thinking of writing

1310-562: A close friend and follower of botany professor John Stevens Henslow . He met other leading parson-naturalists who saw scientific work as religious natural theology , becoming known to these dons as "the man who walks with Henslow". When his own exams drew near, Darwin applied himself to his studies and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paley 's Evidences of Christianity (1795). In his final examination in January 1831, Darwin did well, coming tenth out of 178 candidates for

1441-412: A copy of his journal for his family. He had some expertise in geology, beetle collecting and dissecting marine invertebrates, but in all other areas, was a novice and ably collected specimens for expert appraisal. Despite suffering badly from seasickness, Darwin wrote copious notes while on board the ship. Most of his zoology notes are about marine invertebrates, starting with plankton collected during

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1572-546: A dissolute younger son of Squire Cass, the town's leading landowner. On discovering the theft, Silas sinks into a deep depression despite the villagers' attempts to aid him. Dunsey immediately disappears, but the community makes little of this disappearance since he has vanished several times before. Godfrey Cass, Dunsey's elder brother, also harbours a secret past. He is married to, but estranged from, Molly Farren, an opium -addicted working-class woman living in another town. This secret prevents Godfrey from marrying Nancy Lammeter,

1703-459: A downy nest high up in a good old tree". Her stay is commemorated by a plaque on the building. While residing there, she read avidly and took long walks in the beautiful Swiss countryside, which was a great inspiration to her. François Durade painted her portrait there as well. On her return to England the following year (1850), she moved to London with the intent of becoming a writer, and she began referring to herself as Marian Evans. She stayed at

1834-596: A fascination and expertise in marine invertebrates, dating back to his student days with Grant, by dissecting and classifying the barnacles he had collected on the voyage, enjoying observing beautiful structures and thinking about comparisons with allied structures. In 1847, Hooker read the "Essay" and sent notes that provided Darwin with the calm critical feedback that he needed, but would not commit himself and questioned Darwin's opposition to continuing acts of creation . In an attempt to improve his chronic ill health, Darwin went in 1849 to Dr. James Gully 's Malvern spa and

1965-453: A few days after birth in March 1821. She also had a half-brother, Robert Evans (1802–1864), and half-sister, Frances "Fanny" Evans Houghton (1805–1882), from her father's previous marriage to Harriet Poynton (1780–1809). In early 1820, the family moved to a house named Griff House , between Nuneaton and Bedworth . The young Evans was a voracious reader and obviously intelligent. Because she

2096-433: A foray into verse, but her poetry's initial popularity has not endured. Working as a translator, Eliot was exposed to German texts of religious, social, and moral philosophy such as David Friedrich Strauss's Life of Jesus and Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity ; also important was her translation from Latin of Jewish-Dutch philosopher Spinoza's Ethics . Elements from these works show up in her fiction, much of which

2227-529: A fortnight mapping strata in Wales. After leaving Sedgwick in Wales, Darwin spent a few days with student friends at Barmouth . He returned home on 29 August to find a letter from Henslow proposing him as a suitable (if unfinished) naturalist for a self-funded supernumerary place on HMS  Beagle with captain Robert FitzRoy , a position for a gentleman rather than "a mere collector". The ship

2358-532: A freed black slave who had accompanied Charles Waterton in the South American rainforest . In Darwin's second year at the university, he joined the Plinian Society , a student natural-history group featuring lively debates in which radical democratic students with materialistic views challenged orthodox religious concepts of science. He assisted Robert Edmond Grant 's investigations of

2489-473: A friend in old age ... better than a dog anyhow", against points such as "less money for books" and "terrible loss of time". Having decided in favour of marriage, he discussed it with his father, then went to visit his cousin Emma on 29 July. At this time he did not get around to proposing, but against his father's advice, he mentioned his ideas on transmutation. He married Emma on 29 January 1839 and they were

2620-530: A giant capybara . The armour fragments were actually from Glyptodon , a huge armadillo-like creature, as Darwin had initially thought. These extinct creatures were related to living species in South America. In mid-December, Darwin took lodgings in Cambridge to arrange expert classification of his collections, and prepare his own research for publication. Questions of how to combine his diary into

2751-556: A giant version of the armour on local armadillos . From a jaw and tooth he identified the gigantic Megatherium , then from Cuvier's description thought the armour was from this animal. The finds were shipped to England, and scientists found the fossils of great interest. In Patagonia, Darwin came to wrongly believe the territory was devoid of reptiles. On rides with gauchos into the interior to explore geology and collect more fossils, Darwin gained social, political and anthropological insights into both native and colonial people at

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2882-506: A great name among the Naturalists of Europe". On 2 October 1836, Beagle anchored at Falmouth , Cornwall. Darwin promptly made the long coach journey to Shrewsbury to visit his home and see relatives. He then hurried to Cambridge to see Henslow, who advised him on finding available naturalists to catalogue Darwin's animal collections and to take on the botanical specimens. Darwin's father organised investments, enabling his son to be

3013-410: A majority of the educated public had accepted evolution as a fact . However, many initially favoured competing explanations that gave only a minor role to natural selection, and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution. Darwin's scientific discovery

3144-640: A man much younger than her, and she changed her name to Mary Ann Cross. Mary Ann Evans was born in Nuneaton , Warwickshire , England , at South Farm on the Arbury Hall estate. She was the third child of Robert Evans (1773–1849), manager of the Arbury Hall estate, and Christiana Evans ( née Pearson, 1788–1836), daughter of a local mill-owner. Her full siblings were: Christiana, known as Chrissey (1814–1859), Isaac (1816–1890), and twin brothers who died

3275-726: A number of inhabitants of a small English town on the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832 ; the novel is notable for its deep psychological insight and sophisticated character portraits. The roots of her realist philosophy can be found in her review of John Ruskin 's Modern Painters in Westminster Review in 1856. Eliot also express proto- Zionist ideas in Daniel Deronda . Readers in the Victorian era praised her novels for their depictions of rural society. Much of

3406-632: A poetic fantasy of gradual creation including undeveloped ideas anticipating concepts his grandson expanded. Both families were largely Unitarian , though the Wedgwoods were adopting Anglicanism . Robert Darwin, a freethinker , had baby Charles baptised in November 1809 in the Anglican St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury , but Charles and his siblings attended the local Unitarian Church with their mother. The eight-year-old Charles already had

3537-410: A positive view of the growing movement in support of Irish home rule . She was influenced by the writings of John Stuart Mill and read all of his major works as they were published. In Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869) she judged the second chapter excoriating the laws which oppress married women "excellent." She was supportive of Mill's parliamentary run, but believed that the electorate

3668-609: A process he called natural selection , in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding . Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey . Darwin's early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at the University of Edinburgh ; instead, he helped to investigate marine invertebrates . His studies at

3799-472: A product of their friendship, Bray published some of Evans's own earliest writing, such as reviews, in his newspaper the Coventry Herald and Observer . As Evans began to question her own religious faith, her father threatened to throw her out of the house, but his threat was not carried out. Instead, she respectfully attended church and continued to keep house for him until his death in 1849, when she

3930-539: A programmer of laws. Darwin stayed with his freethinking brother Erasmus, part of this Whig circle and a close friend of the writer Harriet Martineau , who promoted the Malthusianism that underpinned the controversial Whig Poor Law reforms to stop welfare from causing overpopulation and more poverty. As a Unitarian, she welcomed the radical implications of transmutation of species , promoted by Grant and younger surgeons influenced by Geoffroy . Transmutation

4061-465: A ribbon manufacturer and had used his wealth in the building of schools and in other philanthropic causes. Evans, who had been struggling with religious doubts for some time, became intimate friends with the radical, free-thinking Brays, who had a casual view of marital obligations and the Brays' "Rosehill" home was a haven for people who held and debated radical views. The people whom the young woman met at

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4192-591: A sand beach. He theorised that as the land rose, oceanic islands sank, and coral reefs round them grew to form atolls . On the geologically new Galápagos Islands , Darwin looked for evidence attaching wildlife to an older "centre of creation", and found mockingbirds allied to those in Chile but differing from island to island. He heard that slight variations in the shape of tortoise shells showed which island they came from, but failed to collect them, even after eating tortoises taken on board as food. In Australia,

4323-517: A self-funded gentleman scientist , and an excited Darwin went around the London institutions being fêted and seeking experts to describe the collections. British zoologists at the time had a huge backlog of work, due to natural history collecting being encouraged throughout the British Empire, and there was a danger of specimens just being left in storage. Charles Lyell eagerly met Darwin for

4454-454: A sense of social order and morality. The religious elements in her fiction also owe much to her upbringing, with the experiences of Maggie Tulliver from The Mill on the Floss sharing many similarities with the young Mary Ann Evans. Eliot also faced a quandary similar to that of Silas Marner, whose alienation from the church simultaneously meant his alienation from society. Because Eliot retained

4585-719: A similarity between farmers picking the best stock in selective breeding, and a Malthusian Nature selecting from chance variants so that "every part of newly acquired structure is fully practical and perfected", thinking this comparison "a beautiful part of my theory". He later called his theory natural selection , an analogy with what he termed the "artificial selection" of selective breeding. On 11 November, he returned to Maer and proposed to Emma, once more telling her his ideas. She accepted, then in exchanges of loving letters she showed how she valued his openness in sharing their differences, while expressing her strong Unitarian beliefs and concerns that his honest doubts might separate them in

4716-705: A taste for natural history and collecting when he joined the day school run by its preacher in 1817. That July, his mother died. From September 1818, he joined his older brother Erasmus in attending the nearby Anglican Shrewsbury School as a boarder . Darwin spent the summer of 1825 as an apprentice doctor, helping his father treat the poor of Shropshire, before going to the well-regarded University of Edinburgh Medical School with his brother Erasmus in October 1825. Darwin found lectures dull and surgery distressing, so he neglected his studies. He learned taxidermy in around 40 daily hour-long sessions from John Edmonstone ,

4847-468: A time of revolution, and learnt that two types of rhea had separate but overlapping territories. Further south, he saw stepped plains of shingle and seashells as raised beaches at a series of elevations. He read Lyell's second volume and accepted its view of "centres of creation" of species, but his discoveries and theorising challenged Lyell's ideas of smooth continuity and of extinction of species. Three Fuegians on board, who had been seized during

4978-579: A vestigial respect for religion, German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche excoriated her system of morality for figuring sin as a debt that can be expiated through suffering, which he demeaned as characteristic of "little moralistic females à la Eliot." She was at her most autobiographical in Looking Backwards , part of her final published work Impressions of Theophrastus Such . By the time of Daniel Deronda , Eliot's sales were falling off, and she had faded from public view to some degree. This

5109-622: A weaver, is a member of a small Calvinist congregation in Lantern Yard, a slum street in Northern England . He is falsely accused of stealing the congregation's funds while watching over the very ill deacon. Two pieces of evidence implicate Silas: a pocket knife, and the discovery of the bag formerly containing the money in his own house. There is the strong suggestion that Silas's best friend, William Dane, has framed him, since Silas had lent his pocket knife to William shortly before

5240-419: A young middle-class woman. On a winter's night, Molly tries to make her way to Squire Cass's New Year's Eve party with her two-year-old girl to announce that she is Godfrey's wife. On the way, she collapses in the snow and loses consciousness. The child wanders into Silas's house. Silas follows the child's tracks in the snow and discovers the woman dead. When he goes to the party for help, Godfrey heads outdoors to

5371-471: Is known as a Malthusian catastrophe . Darwin was well-prepared to compare this to Augustin de Candolle 's "warring of the species" of plants and the struggle for existence among wildlife, explaining how numbers of a species kept roughly stable. As species always breed beyond available resources, favourable variations would make organisms better at surviving and passing the variations on to their offspring, while unfavourable variations would be lost. He wrote that

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5502-416: Is known for embracing a realist aesthetic inspired by Dutch visual art. The revelations about Eliot's private life surprised and shocked many of her admiring readers, but this did not affect her popularity as a novelist. Her relationship with Lewes afforded her the encouragement and stability she needed to write fiction, but it would be some time before the couple were accepted into polite society. Acceptance

5633-465: Is magnificently ugly — deliciously hideous. She has a low forehead, a dull grey eye, a vast pendulous nose, a huge mouth, full of uneven teeth & a chin & jawbone qui n'en finissent pas ["which never end"] ... Now in this vast ugliness resides a most powerful beauty which, in a very few minutes steals forth & charms the mind, so that you end as I ended, in falling in love with her. She spelled her name differently at different times. Mary Anne

5764-431: Is something to love; the second something to reverence". George Eliot was considered by contemporaries to be physically unattractive; she herself knew this and made jokes about her appearance in letters to friends. Despite this, numerous acquaintances found that the force of her personality overcame their impression of her appearance. Of his first meeting with her on 9 May 1869, Henry James wrote: ... To begin with she

5895-571: Is the unifying theory of the life sciences , explaining the diversity of life . Darwin was born in Shrewsbury , Shropshire, on 12 February 1809, at his family's home, The Mount . He was the fifth of six children of wealthy society doctor and financier Robert Darwin and Susannah Darwin (née Wedgwood). His grandfathers Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were both prominent abolitionists . Erasmus Darwin had praised general concepts of evolution and common descent in his Zoonomia (1794),

6026-435: Is written with her trademark sense of agnostic humanism . According to Clare Carlisle , who published a new biography on George Eliot in 2023, the overdue publication of Spinoza's Ethics was a real shame, because it could have provided some illuminating cues for understanding the more mature works of the writer. She had taken particular notice of Feuerbach's conception of Christianity, positing that our understanding of

6157-741: The George Eliot Academy , Middlemarch Junior School, George Eliot Hospital (formerly Nuneaton Emergency Hospital), and George Eliot Road, in Foleshill , Coventry. Also, The Mary Anne Evans Hospice in Nuneaton. A statue of Eliot is in Newdegate Street, Nuneaton, and Nuneaton Museum & Art Gallery has a display of artefacts related to her. A tunnel boring machine constructing the Bromford Tunnel on High Speed 2

6288-522: The Midlands and settles near the rural village of Raveloe in Warwickshire where he lives isolated and alone, choosing to have only minimal contact with the residents beyond his work as a linen weaver. He devotes himself wholeheartedly to his craft and comes to adore the gold coins he earns and hoards from his weaving. One foggy night, Silas's two bags of gold are stolen by Dunstan ("Dunsey") Cass,

6419-554: The Narrative were resolved at the end of the month when FitzRoy accepted Broderip's advice to make it a separate volume, and Darwin began work on his Journal and Remarks . Darwin's first paper showed that the South American landmass was slowly rising, and with Lyell's enthusiastic backing he read it to the Geological Society of London on 4 January 1837. On the same day, he presented his mammal and bird specimens to

6550-610: The Royal Society 's Royal Medal, and it made his reputation as a biologist . Upon the conclusion of his research, Darwin declared "I hate a barnacle as no man ever did before." In 1854, he became a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London , gaining postal access to its library. He began a major reassessment of his theory of species, and in November realised that divergence in the character of descendants could be explained by them becoming adapted to "diversified places in

6681-410: The University of Cambridge 's Christ's College from 1828 to 1831 encouraged his passion for natural science . However, it was his five-year voyage on HMS  Beagle from 1831 to 1836 that truly established Darwin as an eminent geologist. The observations and theories he developed during his voyage supported Charles Lyell 's concept of gradual geological change . Publication of his journal of

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6812-890: The Zoological Society . The ornithologist John Gould soon announced that the Galápagos birds that Darwin had thought a mixture of blackbirds , " gros-beaks " and finches , were, in fact, twelve separate species of finches . On 17 February, Darwin was elected to the Council of the Geological Society, and Lyell's presidential address presented Owen's findings on Darwin's fossils, stressing geographical continuity of species as supporting his uniformitarian ideas. Early in March, Darwin moved to London to be near this work, joining Lyell's social circle of scientists and experts such as Charles Babbage , who described God as

6943-521: The first Beagle voyage then given Christian education in England, were returning with a missionary. Darwin found them friendly and civilised, yet at Tierra del Fuego he met "miserable, degraded savages", as different as wild from domesticated animals. He remained convinced that, despite this diversity, all humans were interrelated with a shared origin and potential for improvement towards civilisation. Unlike his scientist friends, he now thought there

7074-519: The marsupial rat-kangaroo and the platypus seemed so unusual that Darwin thought it was almost as though two distinct Creators had been at work. He found the Aborigines "good-humoured & pleasant", their numbers depleted by European settlement. FitzRoy investigated how the atolls of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands had formed, and the survey supported Darwin's theorising. FitzRoy began writing

7205-598: The ordinary degree. Darwin had to stay at Cambridge until June 1831. He studied Paley's Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (first published in 1802), which made an argument for divine design in nature , explaining adaptation as God acting through laws of nature . He read John Herschel 's new book, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831), which described

7336-493: The realism of novels that were being written in Europe at the time, an emphasis on realistic storytelling confirmed in her own subsequent fiction. She also adopted a nom-de-plume, George Eliot; as she explained to her biographer J. W. Cross, George was Lewes's forename, and Eliot was "a good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word". Although female authors were published under their own names during her lifetime, she wanted to escape

7467-669: The "Rosehill Circle". The Strauss book had caused a sensation in Germany by arguing that the miracles in the New Testament were mythical additions with little basis in fact. Evans's translation had a similar effect in England, with the Earl of Shaftesbury calling her translation "the most pestilential book ever vomited out of the jaws of hell." Later she translated Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1854). The ideas in these books would have an effect on her own fiction. As

7598-596: The "final cause of all this wedging, must be to sort out proper structure, & adapt it to changes", so that "One may say there is a force like a hundred thousand wedges trying force into every kind of adapted structure into the gaps of in the economy of nature, or rather forming gaps by thrusting out weaker ones." This would result in the formation of new species. As he later wrote in his Autobiography : In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate

7729-577: The Brays' house included Robert Owen , Herbert Spencer , Harriet Martineau , and Ralph Waldo Emerson . Through this society Evans was introduced to more liberal and agnostic theologies and to writers such as David Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach , who cast doubt on the literal truth of Biblical texts. In fact, her first major literary work was an English translation of Strauss's Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet as The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined (1846), which she completed after it had been left incomplete by Elizabeth "Rufa" Brabant, another member of

7860-622: The Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Actions of Worms (1881), he examined earthworms and their effect on soil. Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species . By the 1870s, the scientific community and

7991-665: The Italians would chase the "odious Austrians" out of Lombardy and that "decayed monarchs" would be pensioned off, although she believed a gradual reformist approach to social problems was best for England. In 1850–51, Evans attended classes in mathematics at the Ladies College in Bedford Square, later known as Bedford College, London . The philosopher and critic George Henry Lewes (1817–1878) met Evans in 1851, and by 1854 they had decided to live together. Lewes

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8122-459: The afterlife. While he was house-hunting in London, bouts of illness continued and Emma wrote urging him to get some rest, almost prophetically remarking "So don't be ill any more my dear Charley till I can be with you to nurse you." He found what they called "Macaw Cottage" (because of its gaudy interiors) in Gower Street , then moved his "museum" in over Christmas. On 24 January 1839, Darwin

8253-506: The anatomy and life cycle of marine invertebrates in the Firth of Forth , and on 27 March 1827 presented at the Plinian his own discovery that black spores found in oyster shells were the eggs of a skate leech . One day, Grant praised Lamarck 's evolutionary ideas . Darwin was astonished by Grant's audacity, but had recently read similar ideas in his grandfather Erasmus' journals. Darwin

8384-474: The area reserved for political and religious dissenters and agnostics, beside the love of her life, George Henry Lewes . The graves of Karl Marx and her friend Herbert Spencer are nearby. In 1980, on the centenary of her death, a memorial stone was established for her in the Poets' Corner between W. H. Auden and Dylan Thomas , with a quote from Scenes of Clerical Life : "The first condition of human goodness

8515-437: The botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker , writing with melodramatic humour "it is like confessing a murder". Hooker replied, "There may, in my opinion, have been a series of productions on different spots, & also a gradual change of species. I shall be delighted to hear how you think that this change may have taken place, as no presently conceived opinions satisfy me on the subject." By July, Darwin had expanded his "sketch" into

8646-555: The business side of the Review with attempts to change its layout and design. Although Chapman was officially the editor, it was Evans who did most of the work of producing the journal, contributing many essays and reviews beginning with the January 1852 issue and continuing until the end of her employment at the Review in the first half of 1854. Eliot sympathized with the 1848 Revolutions throughout continental Europe, and even hoped that

8777-751: The countryside. Middlemarch was described by the novelist Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people" and by Martin Amis and Julian Barnes as the greatest novel in the English language. Scandalously and unconventionally for the era, she lived with the married George Henry Lewes as his conjugal partner, from 1854 to 1878, and called him her husband. He remained married to his wife and supported their children, even after she left him to live with another man and have children with him. In May 1880, eighteen months after Lewes's death, George Eliot married her long-time friend, John Cross,

8908-479: The crime was committed. Lots are drawn in the belief – also shared by Silas – that God will direct the process and establish the truth, but they indicate that Silas is guilty. The woman Silas was to marry breaks their engagement and marries William instead. With his life shattered, his trust in God lost, and his heart broken, Silas leaves Lantern Yard and the city for a rural area where he is unknown. Silas travels south to

9039-542: The duties of Secretary of the Geological Society. After initially declining the work, he accepted the post in March 1838. Despite the grind of writing and editing the Beagle reports, Darwin made remarkable progress on transmutation, taking every opportunity to question expert naturalists and, unconventionally, people with practical experience in selective breeding such as farmers and pigeon fanciers . Over time, his research drew on information from his relatives and children,

9170-428: The evolution of the self." These themes made their way into Evans's first complete novel, Adam Bede (1859). It was an instant success, and prompted yet more intense curiosity as to the author's identity: there was even a pretender to the authorship, one Joseph Liggins. This public interest subsequently led to Mary Anne Evans Lewes's acknowledgment that it was she who stood behind the pseudonym George Eliot. Adam Bede

9301-713: The family butler, neighbours, colonists and former shipmates. He included mankind in his speculations from the outset, and on seeing an orangutan in the zoo on 28 March 1838 noted its childlike behaviour. The strain took a toll, and by June he was being laid up for days on end with stomach problems, headaches and heart symptoms. For the rest of his life, he was repeatedly incapacitated with episodes of stomach pains, vomiting, severe boils , palpitations, trembling and other symptoms, particularly during times of stress, such as attending meetings or making social visits. The cause of Darwin's illness remained unknown, and attempts at treatment had only ephemeral success. On 23 June, he took

9432-597: The first time on 29 October and soon introduced him to the up-and-coming anatomist Richard Owen , who had the facilities of the Royal College of Surgeons to work on the fossil bones collected by Darwin. Owen's surprising results included other gigantic extinct ground sloths as well as the Megatherium Darwin had identified, a near complete skeleton of the unknown Scelidotherium and a hippopotamus -sized rodent -like skull named Toxodon resembling

9563-515: The form of the golden-haired child. Godfrey Cass is now free to marry Nancy, but continues to conceal the fact of his previous marriage—and child—from her. However, he aids Marner in caring for Eppie with occasional financial gifts. More practical help and support in bringing up the child is provided by Dolly Winthrop, Marner's kindly neighbour. Dolly's help and advice assist Marner not only in bringing up Eppie, but also in integrating them into village society. Sixteen years pass, and Eppie grows up to be

9694-582: The heart", so his doctors urged him to "knock off all work" and live in the country for a few weeks. After visiting Shrewsbury, he joined his Wedgwood relatives at Maer Hall , Staffordshire, but found them too eager for tales of his travels to give him much rest. His charming, intelligent, and cultured cousin Emma Wedgwood , nine months older than Darwin, was nursing his invalid aunt. His uncle Josiah pointed out an area of ground where cinders had disappeared under loam and suggested that this might have been

9825-472: The highest aim of natural philosophy as understanding such laws through inductive reasoning based on observation, and Alexander von Humboldt 's Personal Narrative of scientific travels in 1799–1804. Inspired with "a burning zeal" to contribute, Darwin planned to visit Tenerife with some classmates after graduation to study natural history in the tropics. In preparation, he joined Adam Sedgwick 's geology course, then on 4 August travelled with him to spend

9956-406: The house of John Chapman , the radical publisher whom she had met earlier at Rosehill and who had published her Strauss translation. She then joined Chapman's ménage-à-trois along with his wife and mistress. Chapman had recently purchased the campaigning, left-wing journal The Westminster Review . Evans became its assistant editor in 1851 after joining just a year earlier. Evans's writings for

10087-474: The intervening years; the place is now replaced by a large factory. No one seems to know what happened to Lantern Yard's inhabitants. However, Silas contentedly resigns himself to the fact that he will never know and now leads a happy existence among his self-made family and friends. In the end, Eppie marries a local boy she has grown up with, Dolly's son Aaron, and they move into Silas's house, which has been newly improved courtesy of Godfrey. Silas's actions through

10218-510: The marriage courted some controversy due to the 21 year age differences, it pleased her brother Isaac that she was married in this relationship. He had broken off relations with her when she had begun to live with Lewes, and now sent congratulations. While the couple were honeymooning in Venice , Cross, in a suicide attempt, jumped from the hotel balcony into the Grand Canal . He survived, and

10349-509: The material for her prose was drawn from her own experience. She shared with Wordsworth the belief that there was much value and beauty to be found in the mundane details of ordinary country life. Eliot did not, however, confine herself to stories of the English countryside. Romola , an historical novel set in late fifteenth century Florence , was based on the life of the Italian priest Girolamo Savonarola . In The Spanish Gypsy , Eliot made

10480-621: The most important Western writers of all time . In a 2007 authors' poll by Time , Middlemarch was voted the tenth greatest literary work ever written. In 2015, writers from outside the UK voted it first among all British novels "by a landslide". The various film and television adaptations of Eliot's books have re-introduced her to the wider reading public. Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( / ˈ d ɑːr w ɪ n / DAR -win ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882)

10611-461: The multiple levels of the idea of alienation in the novel. Joseph Wiesenfarth has noted undercurrents of myth and legend, incorporated into a 'realistic' context, along with contrasts of responsible and irresponsible behaviour in the contrasting fates of Silas Marner and the Cass brothers. David Sonstroem has studied ideas of chance and Darwinian thinking in the context of the plot and character fates in

10742-423: The nature of the divine was to be found ultimately in the nature of humanity projected onto a divine figure. An example of this philosophy appeared in her novel Romola , in which Eliot's protagonist displayed a "surprisingly modern readiness to interpret religious language in humanist or secular ethical terms." Though Eliot herself was not religious, she had respect for religious tradition and its ability to maintain

10873-712: The newlyweds returned to England. They moved to a new house in Chelsea, but Eliot fell ill with a throat infection. This, coupled with the kidney disease with which she had been afflicted for several years, led to her death on 22 December 1880 at the age of 61. Due to her denial of the Christian faith and her relationship with Lewes, Eliot was not buried in Westminster Abbey . She was instead interred in Highgate Cemetery (East), Highgate, London, in

11004-572: The novel. Brian Swann has examined mythic and religious undertones in the novel. Jeff Nunokawa analyses ideas about physical touch, with respect to Silas Marner's handling of his gold compared to his raising of Eppie, and connects them to sexual and sensual themes. Kate E. Brown has discussed overarching themes of time and temporality, with respect to the interlocked stories of Godfrey Cass and Silas Marner. George Eliot Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively Mary Anne or Marian ), known by her pen name George Eliot ,

11135-416: The novel. Susan Stewart has looked at the influence of folktales and ideology related to 'work' vs 'labour' in the novel. Ian Milner has examined two overarching themes of Silas Marner's 'loss and recovery of his humanity', and of a conflict between stated moral values and the social realities juxtaposed with them. Robert H. Dunham has analysed the influence of the ideas and philosophy of William Wordsworth on

11266-433: The official Narrative of the Beagle voyages, and after reading Darwin's diary, he proposed incorporating it into the account. Darwin's Journal was eventually rewritten as a separate third volume, on geology and natural history. In Cape Town , South Africa, Darwin and FitzRoy met John Herschel, who had recently written to Lyell praising his uniformitarianism as opening bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries,

11397-496: The origin of species". Without telling Darwin, extracts from his letters to Henslow had been read to scientific societies, printed as a pamphlet for private distribution among members of the Cambridge Philosophical Society , and reported in magazines, including The Athenaeum . Darwin first heard of this at Cape Town, and at Ascension Island read of Sedgwick's prediction that Darwin "will have

11528-483: The paper were comments on her views of society and the Victorian way of thinking. She was sympathetic to the lower classes and criticised organised religion throughout her articles and reviews and commented on contemporary ideas of the time. Much of this was drawn from her own experiences and knowledge and she used this to critique other ideas and organisations. This led to her writing being viewed as authentic and wise but not too obviously opinionated. Evans also focused on

11659-522: The parents of ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood. Continuing his research in London, Darwin's wide reading now included the sixth edition of Malthus 's An Essay on the Principle of Population . On 28 September 1838, he noted its assertion that human "population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years, or increases in a geometrical ratio", a geometric progression so that population soon exceeds food supply in what

11790-573: The possibility that "one species does change into another" to explain the geographical distribution of living species such as the rheas, and extinct ones such as the strange extinct mammal Macrauchenia , which resembled a giant guanaco , a llama relative. Around mid-July, he recorded in his "B" notebook his thoughts on lifespan and variation across generations – explaining the variations he had observed in Galápagos tortoises , mockingbirds, and rheas. He sketched branching descent, and then

11921-445: The pride of the village. She has a strong bond with Silas, who through her has found a place in the rural society and a purpose in life. Meanwhile, Godfrey and Nancy mourn their own childless state, after the death of their baby. Eventually, the skeleton of Dunstan Cass—still clutching Silas's gold—is found at the bottom of the stone quarry near Silas's home, and the money is duly returned to Silas. Shocked by this revelation, and coming to

12052-412: The realisation of his own conscience, Godfrey confesses to Nancy that Molly was his first wife and that Eppie is his child. They offer to raise her as a gentleman's daughter, but this would mean Eppie would have to forsake living with Silas. Eppie politely but firmly refuses, saying, "I can't think o' no happiness without him." Silas revisits Lantern Yard, but his old neighbourhood has been "swept away" in

12183-528: The relationship was contrary to the social conventions of the time, and attracted considerable disapproval. While continuing to contribute pieces to the Westminster Review , Evans resolved to become a novelist, and set out a pertinent manifesto in one of her last essays for the Review , "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists" (1856). The essay criticised the trivial and ridiculous plots of contemporary fiction written by women. In other essays, she praised

12314-520: The replacement of extinct species by others" as "a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process". When organising his notes as the ship sailed home, Darwin wrote that, if his growing suspicions about the mockingbirds, the tortoises and the Falkland Islands fox were correct, "such facts undermine the stability of Species", then cautiously added "would" before "undermine". He later wrote that such facts "seemed to me to throw some light on

12445-519: The same idea, prompting the immediate joint submission of both their theories to the Linnean Society of London . Darwin's work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant scientific explanation of natural diversification. In 1871, he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex , followed by The Expression of

12576-407: The scene of the accident, but resolves to tell no one that Molly was his wife. Molly's death, conveniently for Godfrey and Nancy, puts an end to the marriage. Silas keeps the child and names her Eppie, after his deceased mother and sister, both named Hephzibah . Eppie changes Silas's life completely. Silas has been robbed of his material gold, but thinks that he has it returned to him symbolically in

12707-466: The sixth year of our life together, at Holly Lodge, South Field, Wandsworth, and finished 21 March 1860." Silas Marner (1861) and Romola (1863) soon followed, and later Felix Holt, the Radical (1866) and her most acclaimed novel, Middlemarch (1871–1872). Her last novel was Daniel Deronda , published in 1876, after which she and Lewes moved to Witley , Surrey. By this time Lewes's health

12838-472: The sole exception perhaps of Romola de' Bardi , who resolutely rejects the State and Church obligations of her time. After the success of Adam Bede , Eliot continued to write popular novels for the next fifteen years. Within a year of completing Adam Bede , she finished The Mill on the Floss , dedicating the manuscript: "To my beloved husband, George Henry Lewes, I give this MS. of my third book, written in

12969-472: The stereotype of women's writing being limited to lighthearted romances or other lighter fare not to be taken very seriously. She also wanted to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as a translator, editor, and critic. Another factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny, thus avoiding the scandal that would have arisen because of her relationship with Lewes, who

13100-408: The struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work... By mid-December, Darwin saw

13231-409: The systematics of the taxa. He wrote his first examination of the species in 1846, but did not formally describe it until 1854. FitzRoy's long delayed Narrative was published in May 1839. Darwin's Journal and Remarks got good reviews as the third volume, and on 15 August it was published on its own. Early in 1842, Darwin wrote about his ideas to Charles Lyell, who noted that his ally "denies seeing

13362-422: The two sexes, as to education and the possibilities of free development", and dismissed appeals to nature in explaining women's lower status. In 1870, she responded enthusiastically to Lady Amberley 's feminist lecture on the claims of women for education, occupations, equality in marriage, and child custody. It would be wrong to assume that the female protagonists of her works can be considered "feminist", with

13493-399: The use of a Greek typeface ), and her themes are often influenced by Greek tragedy". Her frequent visits to the estate also allowed her to contrast the wealth in which the local landowner lived with the lives of the often much poorer people on the estate, and different lives lived in parallel would reappear in many of her works. The other important early influence in her life was religion. She

13624-473: The voyage made Darwin famous as a popular author. Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin began detailed investigations and, in 1838, devised his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research, and his geological work had priority. He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described

13755-420: The voyage began on 27 December 1831; it lasted almost five years. As FitzRoy had intended, Darwin spent most of that time on land investigating geology and making natural history collections, while HMS Beagle surveyed and charted coasts. He kept careful notes of his observations and theoretical speculations, and at intervals during the voyage his specimens were sent to Cambridge together with letters including

13886-497: The wife of a parson. Eliot was profoundly influenced by the works of Thomas Carlyle . As early as 1841, she referred to him as "a grand favourite of mine", and references to him abound in her letters from the 1840s and 1850s. According to University of Victoria professor Lisa Surridge, Carlyle "stimulated Eliot's interest in German thought, encouraged her turn from Christian orthodoxy, and shaped her ideas on work, duty, sympathy, and

14017-403: The work of earthworms , inspiring "a new & important theory" on their role in soil formation , which Darwin presented at the Geological Society on 1 November 1837. His Journal was printed and ready for publication by the end of February 1838, as was the first volume of the Narrative , but FitzRoy was still working hard to finish his own volume. William Whewell pushed Darwin to take on

14148-420: The years in caring for Eppie have apparently provided joy for everyone, and the extended family celebrates its happiness. Lawrence Jay Dessner has drawn connections between the biographical circumstances of Eliot's life in relation to events in the novel. Bruce K. Martin has discussed Eliot's use of Godfrey Cass as "both parallel and foil" to Silas Marner in the structure of the novel. Fred C. Thomson has examined

14279-707: Was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). On 29 January, Darwin and Emma Wedgwood were married at Maer in an Anglican ceremony arranged to suit the Unitarians, then immediately caught the train to London and their new home. Darwin now had the framework of his theory of natural selection "by which to work", as his "prime hobby". His research included extensive experimental selective breeding of plants and animals, finding evidence that species were not fixed and investigating many detailed ideas to refine and substantiate his theory. For fifteen years this work

14410-463: Was 30. Five days after her father's funeral, she travelled to Switzerland with the Brays. She decided to stay on in Geneva alone, living first on the lake at Plongeon (near the present-day United Nations buildings) and then on the second floor of a house owned by her friends François and Juliet d'Albert Durade on the rue de Chanoines (now the rue de la Pelisserie). She commented happily that "one feels in

14541-418: Was a " wren " was in the finch group . Darwin had not labelled the finches by island, but from the notes of others on the ship, including FitzRoy, he allocated species to islands. The two rheas were distinct species, and on 14 March Darwin announced how their distribution changed going southwards. By mid-March 1837, barely six months after his return to England, Darwin was speculating in his Red Notebook on

14672-545: Was already married to Agnes Jervis, although in an open marriage . In addition to the three children they had together, Agnes also had four children by Thornton Leigh Hunt . In July 1854, Lewes and Evans travelled to Weimar and Berlin together for the purpose of research. Before going to Germany, Evans continued her theological work with a translation of Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity , and while abroad she wrote essays and worked on her translation of Baruch Spinoza 's Ethics , which she completed in 1856, but which

14803-426: Was an English naturalist , geologist , and biologist , widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology . His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental scientific concept. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace , he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from

14934-557: Was an English novelist, poet, journalist, translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era . She wrote seven novels: Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola (1862–1863), Felix Holt, the Radical (1866), Middlemarch (1871–1872) and Daniel Deronda (1876). As with Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy , she emerged from provincial England; most of her works are set there. Her works are known for their realism , psychological insight , sense of place and detailed depiction of

15065-472: Was anathema to Anglicans defending social order, but reputable scientists openly discussed the subject, and there was wide interest in John Herschel's letter praising Lyell's approach as a way to find a natural cause of the origin of new species. Gould met Darwin and told him that the Galápagos mockingbirds from different islands were separate species, not just varieties, and what Darwin had thought

15196-568: Was brought up within a low church Anglican family, but at that time the Midlands was an area with a growing number of religious dissenters . In 1836, her mother died and Evans (then 16) returned home to act as housekeeper, though she continued to correspond with her tutor Maria Lewis. When she was 21, her brother Isaac married and took over the family home, so Evans and her father moved to Foleshill near Coventry . The closeness to Coventry society brought new influences, most notably those of Charles and Cara Bray. Charles Bray had become rich as

15327-497: Was failing, and he died two years later, on 30 November 1878. Eliot spent the next six months editing Lewes's final work, Life and Mind , for publication, and found solace and companionship with longtime friend and financial adviser John Walter Cross, a Scottish commission agent 20 years her junior, whose mother had recently died. On 16 May 1880, eighteen months after Lewes' death, Eliot married John Walter Cross (1840–1924) and again changed her name, this time to Mary Ann Cross. While

15458-771: Was finally confirmed in 1877 when they were introduced to Princess Louise , the daughter of Queen Victoria . The queen herself was an avid reader of all of Eliot's novels and was so impressed with Adam Bede that she commissioned the artist Edward Henry Corbould to paint scenes from the book. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Eliot expressed sympathy for the Union cause, something which historians have attributed to her abolitionist sympathies. In 1868, she supported philosopher Richard Congreve 's protests against governmental policies in Ireland and had

15589-425: Was in the background to his main occupation of writing on geology and publishing expert reports on the Beagle collections, in particular, the barnacles . The impetus of Darwin's barnacle research came from a collection of a barnacle colony from Chile in 1835, which he dubbed Mr. Arthrobalanus . His confusion over the relationship of this species ( Cryptophialus minutus ) to other barnacles caused him to fixate on

15720-586: Was married. In 1857, when she was 37 years of age, "The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton", the first of the three stories included in Scenes of Clerical Life , and the first work of "George Eliot", was published in Blackwood's Magazine . The Scenes (published as a 2-volume book in 1858), was well received, and was widely believed to have been written by a country parson , or perhaps

15851-412: Was named in honour of her. Throughout her career, Eliot wrote with a politically astute pen. From Adam Bede to The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner , Eliot presented the cases of social outsiders and small-town persecution. Felix Holt, the Radical and The Legend of Jubal were overtly political, and political crisis is at the heart of Middlemarch , in which she presents the stories of

15982-504: Was no unbridgeable gap between humans and animals. A year on, the mission had been abandoned. The Fuegian they had named Jemmy Button lived like the other natives, had a wife, and had no wish to return to England. Darwin experienced an earthquake in Chile in 1835 and saw signs that the land had just been raised, including mussel -beds stranded above high tide. High in the Andes he saw seashells, and several fossil trees that had grown on

16113-602: Was not considered physically beautiful, Evans was not thought to have much chance of marriage, and this, coupled with her intelligence, led her father to invest in an education not often afforded to women. From ages five to nine, she boarded with her sister Chrissey at Miss Latham's school in Attleborough , from ages nine to thirteen at Mrs. Wallington's school in Nuneaton, and from ages thirteen to sixteen at Miss Franklin's school in Coventry . At Mrs. Wallington's school, she

16244-429: Was not helped by the posthumous biography written by her husband, which portrayed a wonderful, almost saintly, woman totally at odds with the scandalous life people knew she had led. In the 20th century she was championed by a new breed of critics, most notably by Virginia Woolf , who called Middlemarch "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people". In 1994, literary critic Harold Bloom placed Eliot among

16375-729: Was not published in her lifetime because the prospective publisher refused to pay the requested £75. In 1981, Eliot's translation of Spinoza's Ethics was finally published by Thomas Deegan, and was determined to be in the public domain in 2018 and published by the George Eliot Archive . It has been re-published in 2020 by Princeton University Press. The trip to Germany also served as a honeymoon for Evans and Lewes, who subsequently considered themselves married. Evans began to refer to Lewes as her husband and to sign her name as Mary Ann Evans Lewes, legally changing her name to Mary Ann Evans Lewes after his death. The refusal to conceal

16506-524: Was rather bored by Robert Jameson 's natural-history course, which covered geology – including the debate between neptunism and plutonism . He learned the classification of plants and assisted with work on the collections of the University Museum , one of the largest museums in Europe at the time. Darwin's neglect of medical studies annoyed his father, who sent him to Christ's College, Cambridge , in January 1828, to study for

16637-574: Was surprised to find some benefit from hydrotherapy . Then, in 1851, his treasured daughter Annie fell ill, reawakening his fears that his illness might be hereditary. She died the same year after a long series of crises. In eight years of work on barnacles, Darwin's theory helped him to find " homologies " showing that slightly changed body parts served different functions to meet new conditions, and in some genera he found minute males parasitic on hermaphrodites , showing an intermediate stage in evolution of distinct sexes . In 1853, it earned him

16768-716: Was taught by the evangelical Maria Lewis—to whom her earliest surviving letters are addressed. In the religious atmosphere of the Misses Franklin 's school, Evans was exposed to a quiet, disciplined belief opposed to evangelicalism. After age sixteen, Evans had little formal education. Thanks to her father's important role on the estate, she was allowed access to the library of Arbury Hall, which greatly aided her self-education and breadth of learning. Her classical education left its mark; Christopher Stray has observed that "George Eliot's novels draw heavily on Greek literature (only one of her books can be printed correctly without

16899-443: Was the spelling used by her father for the baptismal record and she uses this spelling in her earliest letters. Within her family, however, it was spelled Mary Ann. By 1852, she had changed to Marian, but she reverted to Mary Ann in 1880 after she married John Cross. Her memorial stone reads Here lies the body of 'George Eliot' Mary Ann Cross Several landmarks in her birthplace of Nuneaton are named in her honour. These include

17030-446: Was to leave in four weeks on an expedition to chart the coastline of South America. Robert Darwin objected to his son's planned two-year voyage, regarding it as a waste of time, but was persuaded by his brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood II , to agree to (and fund) his son's participation. Darwin took care to remain in a private capacity to retain control over his collection, intending it for a major scientific institution. After delays,

17161-460: Was unlikely to vote for a philosopher and was surprised when he won. While Mill served in parliament, she expressed her agreement with his efforts on behalf of female suffrage, being "inclined to hope for much good from the serious presentation of women's claims before Parliament." In a letter to John Morley , she declared her support for plans "which held out reasonable promise of tending to establish as far as possible an equivalence of advantage for

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